Boy, Snow, Bird

Paperback | March 3, 2015

As seen on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, where it was described as “gloriously unsettling… evoking Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, Angela Carter, Edgar Allan Poe, Gabriel García Márquez, Chris Abani and even Emily Dickinson,” and already one of the year’s most widely acclaimed novels:

“Helen Oyeyemi has fully transformed from a literary prodigy into a powerful, distinctive storyteller…Transfixing and surprising.”—Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A)

“I don’t care what the magic mirror says; Oyeyemi is the cleverest in the land…daring and unnerving… Under Oyeyemi’s spell, the fairy-tale conceit makes a brilliant setting in which to explore the alchemy of racism, the weird ways in which identity can be transmuted in an instant — from beauty to beast or vice versa.” – Ron Charles, The Washington Post

From the prizewinning author of What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, the Snow White fairy tale brilliantly recast as a story of family secrets, race, beauty, and vanity.

In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts looking, she believes, for beauty—the opposite of the life she’s left behind in New York. She marries Arturo Whitman, a local widower, and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow.

A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she’d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy’s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African-Americans passing for white. And even as Boy, Snow, and Bird are divided, their estrangement is complicated by an insistent curiosity about one another. In seeking an understanding that is separate from the image each presents to the world, Boy, Snow, and Bird confront the tyranny of the mirror to ask how much power surfaces really hold.

Dazzlingly inventive and powerfully moving, Boy, Snow, Bird is an astonishing and enchanting novel. With breathtaking feats of imagination, Helen Oyeyemi confirms her place as one of the most original and dynamic literary voices of our time.

When was the last time you read a book that made you want to call a friend and insist they read it, not just because it was a fantastic read, but because you absolutely, immediately needed someone you could talk to about it?
Boy, Snow, Bird is that book. Helen Oyeyemi’s new novel is a fascinating, brilliant, and surprisingly charming story...

As seen on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, where it was described as “gloriously unsettling… evoking Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, Angela Carter, Edgar Allan Poe, Gabriel García Márquez, Chris Abani and even Emily Dickinson,” and already one of the year’s most widely acclaimed novels:“Helen Oyeyemi has fully transformed ...

H elen Oyeyemi is the author of five novels, most recently White Is for Witching, which won a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award, and Mr. Fox, which won a 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. In 2013, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. She lives in Prague.

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Reviews

Rated 5 out of
5 by
ikybella from
amazedThis is hands down my favourite book written in the 21sr century. Its beautifully written, and has many layers of story and meaning to discover. A great read and re-reading is also wonderful!

Date published: 2015-06-12

Rated 2 out of
5 by
Kristina_Johnston from
Not worth the readThis book was recommended by so many people and was on the bestseller list that I decided to give it a try. I didn't find the book to be engaging enough. My interest was lost very easily and it was such a boring read. I would not recommend.

Date published: 2014-07-31

Rated 2 out of
5 by
Sara from
Mediocre Story, hollow charactersI bought this book based on the great reviews and was excited to read it. My excitement faded throughout the novel. The storyline had great potential, yet the characters were barely developed. It was difficult to understand the motivations of the character's actions because I didn't "know" them. They were merely shells to me.
I was happy to see that something big happened in the final act; however, it so was rushed that it let me waiting for more detail and explanation.

Date published: 2014-06-30

Rated 1 out of
5 by
SueA from
SueAOne of the worst books I have ever read, skipped 75% of it and had a hard time getting through the remaining 25%. A friend warned me that it was not good but thought I'd try reading it anyway, big mistake.

Date published: 2014-06-11

Rated 4 out of
5 by
Occasionalreader from
Heather's readsbought this as a gift for my sister. So many people have said it was a good read.
It's different from others and has come highly recommended from many people

Date published: 2014-05-29

Rated 1 out of
5 by
LookingForAGoodRead from
Very Disappointing!Each year my book club and another comes together to read and share our thoughts on one book, this year we chose Boy, Snow, Bird. The description and synopsis sound so wonderful, I really looked forward to this book and so wanted it to be good. However I found the story and the writing difficult to follow. It is not my style to be so negative, but this not only gets a thumbs down from me but of the twelve of us only 2 marginally liked it. I would recommend anyone considering this to pass on it.

Date published: 2014-05-20

Rated 4 out of
5 by
MrsBEFrankweiler from
Almost fabulousI read some wonderful reviews and was eager to dive in to what promised to be a gratifying read.
The first two parts did not disappoint. Elegantly written, original, and thought-provoking, Oyeyemi's story of Boy, Snow, and Bird had me captivated. Sadly, the final Act felt hastily thrown together and poorly resolved. What could have been an interesting layer to the stories of these generations of women felt more gratuitous than enriching. After such a rich, enjoyable start, the book left me feeling disappointed and somewhat cheated.
Overall, Boy, Snow, Bird is worth the read.

Date published: 2014-04-28

Rated 3 out of
5 by
Sharpquilter from
Great premise, but didn't like the main characterThe premise of the book was very appealing to me, a white woman marries a man who appears to be white and then gives birth to a coloured daughter. Lots of possibilities begging to be explored. Unfortunately, I didn't like the main character Boy Novak. Beyond being pretty and fair, there just wasn't anything to her. I couldn't relate to her in any way. She had no convictions, nothing that she believed in , nothing she championed, nothing to like about her. She was just as transparent as the mirrors and shiny surfaces she kept gazing into.
Boy's in laws were only concerned with image, what other people saw them as. Not my kind of people in the least. So very careful about everything they did so as not to rock the false boat that they found themselves living in. I can understand why they choose to live that way, but to not have included Boy in their secret, that was wrong.
I did enjoy the character of Bird. She seemed like a delightful child who was able to be herself, though she was conflicted by the obsessions of her family. Of all the people in the book, she struck me at the one most capable of being truly happy.
I do think that I would have enjoyed this book more if I'd been reading it with a group and been able to discuss the whats and whys and the historical context of the events. It would be a wonderful selection for a book club.

Rated 5 out of
5 by
Heather_Reisman from
A book that refuses to let goWhen was the last time you read a book that made you want to call a friend and insist they read it, not just because it was a fantastic read, but because you absolutely, immediately needed someone you could talk to about it?
Boy, Snow, Bird is that book. Helen Oyeyemi’s new novel is a fascinating, brilliant, and surprisingly charming story of a mother and two daughters struggling to invent themselves while fumbling and failing to understand each other. Boy is the mother, a woman with nerves of cold steel, Snow is the beautiful, enigmatic step-daughter, and Bird is the precocious, dark-skinned child whose birth reveals the mixed-race heritage her family worked so hard to hide.
Together Boy, Snow, and Bird tell a story that echoes Snow White, full of mirrors and masks, jealousy and suspicion, and all the ways we hide from ourselves. It’s a relentlessly original re-imagination, a matryoshka doll of a book with truths nesting inside lies, and characters who reveal themselves momentarily before Oyeyemi wraps them in another layer of mystery.
Boy, Snow, Bird is not a book you’ll be able to keep to yourself. It’s a stunning puzzle that will leave you thinking, sharing, and talking – it is a book that refuses to let go of you.

“The outline of [Oyeyemi’s] remarkable career glimmers with pixie dust…. Her latest novel, Boy, Snow, Bird, continues on this bewitching path … the atmosphere of fantasy lingers over these pages like some intoxicating incense…. Under Oyeyemi’s spell, the fairy-tale conceit makes a brilliant setting in which to explore the alchemy of racism, the weird way in which identity can be transmuted in an instant—from beauty to beast or vice versa.” - The Washington Post“Oyeyemi has fully transformed from a literary prodigy into a powerful, distinctive storyteller…. Transfixing and surprising.” - Entertainment Weekly“Oyeyemi wields her words with economy and grace, and she rounds out her story with an inventive plot and memorable characters.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)“By transforming Snow White into a tale that hinges on race and cultural ideas about beauty—the danger of mirrors indeed—Oyeyemi finds a new, raw power in the classic. In her hands, the story is about secrets and lies, mothers and daughters, lost sisters and the impossibility of seeing oneself or being seen in a brutally racist world…. [Oyeyemi] elegantly and inventively turns a classic fairy tale inside out.” - Los Angeles Times“Oyeyemi is something rare—a born novelist, who gets better every book. Boy, Snow, Bird is an enchanting retelling of Snow White that mixes questions of beauty and vanity with issues of race.” - Cosmopolitan“This imaginative novel explores identity, race and family, arguing in brilliant language that black, white, good, evil, beauty and monstrosity are different sides of a single, awesome truth.” - People“Superbly inventive … examines the thorniness of race and the poisonous ways in which vanity and envy can permeate and distort perception.” - O, The Oprah Magazine“Like Salmon Rushdie and Angela Carter in the’80s, and Jeanette Winterson in the’90s, Oyeyemi has taken a page from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and inverted it, turning the malevolence of a reflecting gaze upon itself, and making it, possibly, amazingly, a positive thing. This—more than her narrative special effects—is the extraordinary feat of Boy, Snow, Bird. In her first four books, Oyeyemi wrote with the same chilly precision as Patricia Highsmith. The performance was mesmerizing, sinister, and creepy. With this book she proves an even great ability: she can thaw a heart.” - Boston Globe“Like Hitchcock, Oyeyemi is interested not merely in what happens when you attempt to pass for someone else, but in the porous boundaries between one self and another…. [Boy, Snow, Bird is] an intriguing, sinuously attractive book.” - The Guardian“Riveting, brilliant and emotionally rich … with fully realized characters, startling images, original observations and revelatory truths, this masterpiece engages the reader’s heart and mind as it captures both the complexities of racial and gender identity in the 20th century and the more intimate complexities of love in all its guises.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred)“Oyeyemi’s [voice is] startlingly distinctive yet always undulating … [Boy, Snow, Bird is] a fresh, memorable tale.” - The Huffington Post“Both exquisitely beautiful and strange…. Oyeyemi casts a powerful light on the absurdities accompanying the history of race in America and the Western world, while taking us to the landscape of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. She brilliantly raises the questions of what identifies us racially: Is it our color? Our genes? Our history? Our culture?… It is a powerful examination of the way we see others and the way others see us. And therein lies the beauty of Oyeyemi’s tale; we all are not, as Boy, Snow, Bird convinces us, what we appear to be, even to ourselves.” - Dallas Morning News“Gloriously unsettling…Boy, Snow, Bird [is] a culmination of a young life spent culling dreamscapes, Oyeyemi’s confidence is palpable—it’s clear that this is the book she’s been waiting for.” - The New York Times“Oyeyemi is one of the few storytellers who seems on intimate terms with the language of myth, swims in it with apparent ease, and teases exciting possibilities from the old stories with her hypnotic command of prose…. When Oyeyemi explores a theme, it tends to follow patterns similar to a melody rather than those of systemic analysis. Images and ideas arise, embodied in gorgeous prose.” - The Globe and Mail“Beguilingly strange…. Breathtakingly good…. Oyeyemi is hugely talented, as fearless as she is funny.” - Toronto Star“Potent and vividly written.” - NOW Magazine